Although women have fought for their right to practice in the medical field, it is still inherently male dominant with males outnumbering females in most medical specialties, even today. The male body has been studied by default in medicine since the Hippocratic era, despite males and females differing in life cycles and therefore disease susceptibilities. In the life course of a woman, there are five major stages: infancy, puberty (adolescence), sexual maturation (reproductive age), climacteric period (peri- and post-menopause), and post-climacteric (elderly) years. These phases involve fluctuations in the hormone milieu and associated physiological and emotional changes specific to women.
